Opening Day 1.5 featured a one-game series with the defending world champs, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the league’s latest makeover recipient, the Miami Marlins. Righty Kyle Lohse earned the Opening Day honors for the Cardinals on the merit of being not recently or presently injured, and much to the surprise of many, Lohse took a perfect game into the 7th inning.
His line from the game:
7.1 IP, 1 ER, 3 K, 0 BB, 8 GB, 10 FB, 2 LD
All told, that comes to a 1.23 ERA, 1.49 FIP, 2.94 xFIP, and… a 4.22 SIERA…
Everything but that SIERA number suggests Lohse had a great start. Let’s find out why.
The most important item to remember — and not just with Lohse, but with Josh Johnson, Felix Hernandez, and every pitcher who has pitched in this extra-young season so far — is that the FIP constant here at FanGraphs is not, well, constant. The Dark Overlord has some magical algorithm in place to keep the constant (usually around 3.2) variable according to the league’s run environment. Because the regular

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